He woke up slowly. It was the kind of leisure sleep that you wake up from, the one that came from a sleep-lagged dream. He stretched as he opened his eyes, yawning and looking around him. He felt good. Maybe he was lazy a bit, but still good.Draven turned to the side and stretched. Everywhere was calm and peaceful, except for the hunger in his belly. He didn’t even notice it until it came in full force, tearing him from within. He groaned and sat up. The game was really out for him; making him remember he was hungry as soon as he got up. What was he doing here anyway?He looked around him. He was lying on lush green grass that had stinging insects, but that was fine. Everywhere around him was green; except for the person who was several feet away, bowing over a brewing pot. Draven squinted his eyes to see in the sun, even though light was shed from him as he was under a tree. The boy looked little in his vision, or was hunger beginning to get to him that he couldn’t see much?“Hey,”
Draven momentarily forgot about the food. Something was very, very wrong. “The women were not real?” he asked the boy. “If they aren’t real…?” The boy shook his head in disappointment, as if the old man in front of him could have done better than those lines. Draven did not want to think of himself in the same sentence with ‘old.’ The game was definitely playing on both his inward and outward appearance. “What are they then?” he pressed further. “They were very much real,” the boy said to him. “They exist because people have been dwelling in the outside world for far too long.” “What do you mean?” ‘It’s pretty simple, really. People die and then don’t return early to the game, so those inside the game suffer the consequences.” Draven straightened. “I don’t understand…” “What don’t you understand?" I’ve laid it out pretty well. I don’t have time to waste on someone who fainted because he was hungry. If you were that hungry, why don’t you just pluck fruit and eat it? How hard ca
After some hours, Draven had reached his threshold. He knew that this was the end, and that he'd got to stop moving around like this. The map was nearly gone and he was desperate and famished. He wanted everything at once; a breath of fresh air, food, water and rest. Leo was so close yet so near. His last location was just an hour away, and Draven had only thirty seven minutes before the map would vanish. The worst of it all was that he was beginning to forget.His theory had been correct after all. If the map vanished, he would forget his earlier mission of looking for Leo. He needed to get as fast as he could, before his hallucinations would overcome his ambitions and he started from square one. He regretted not ignoring his body needs; at least if he had, he would have covered much distance by now.He sped up his walking process, trying to keep up with the map and his memory. He only took a few steps when he heard the roar of a monster behind him. Draven turned slowly. He had neith
The girl laughed. She leaned over and peered at Draven from head to toe. The beastly bear had stopped stomping its hoofs on the ground now; it was instead chewing contentedly on the grass by the road. After chewing, it would spit it out and then continue again.The girl’s partner started to laugh too, stretching his arms far and wide. Draven was too tired to be uncomfortable being the bit of the joke. He just wanted to take a ride. He was sure that the distance he needed to cover couldn’t be done on foot, so it was a miracle that he had come across these people who were stupid enough to tame a beast.“You actually have audacity,” the girl said. “It isn’t a decent amount, you know? You better be careful and hold that mouth of yours tight.”“I need help,” Draven moaned. “Please, I’m dying.”“You were going to die a moment ago, so what difference does that make?”“Please,” Draven said. “I’m not talking about a literal death. I mean that I would die in despair if I did not get to my desti
Draven scowled. This was exactly why the game is survival of the fittest. The fact that the boy sought his solution by snatching the map from him and killing him wasn’t really surprising. At least they had made the decision and notified him in his presence. For the others, they would just act stupidly and use you however they liked. Look at all the women he’d ever come into contact with in the game; they always used him and wanted to kill him afterwards—at least he and Leo had undergone it together. The girl smiled patronizing her brother. They had to be siblings. The subtle love and rivalry between them was quite obvious. The girl was the leader, but the brother liked to insert his opinions here and there—half of which she would accept and the other which she would reject. Draven imagined that it was hard for her to work with her brother as he was increasingly overbearing and tried to brush off her rule at any chance. “We cannot take what rightfully belongs to him,” she said to her
Being alone in the game was terrible, and Leo was alone. He’d been drunk the last time he was Draven, and for the better part of the game he’d been depressed. It first started when he realized he was alone. He spoke to the air and the seas around him, hoping for a snarky remark from them. At least if Draven was here, he’d have something to say. She guy always had, always had one something to talk about. The key problem now was that he couldn’t wait for him, as much as he wanted to. He needed to move on and continue the game; that’s just how it is. Occasionally, he wondered if Draven was still in the real world and if he would ever come back. The time difference was so not the same, but Leo knew that his friend had spent way too much time outside. He wondered at one time if he was going to remain there forever or not. He chewed on his juicy fish as he walked down the paved road. If he was here with Draven, they would have at least taken a rest and probably a bath. Leo hadn’t had a b
Leo contemplated what she had just said. He wasn’t exactly in the mood to help her, but he was trying to emulate Draven’s way of life to remember him more, and he was sure that this was one thing that he would do. On the other hand, when she was in a position to help him, she hadn’t. This was crucial to him; if she had tried to save him, then he would still be in the game. He still didn’t understand why the guy was still over there… was he simply finding joy in the world and now seeing the game as useless? Or was it the wealth Leo had left for him? He wondered now if that was a mistake. “Please don’t delay any longer,” Lara rasped out. Leo curved his sword in the air and chopped off the monster’s head. It was squeamish when it disengaged from its body, as though trying to roll and connect back with its body. Leo once again felt he was making a mistake, but he hit the head over and over again, ignoring the squeaky sound of the monster until it ended. Lara cried as she removed the wo
Leo shifted back from the imminent danger, and Lara shifted with him. He threw her an irritated look. “This is all your fault; you should have let me go when I wanted to!” He hissed at her. “I wasn’t holding you back!” She cried. “You were, with all your talk of services and screams! Perhaps if you hadn't screamed, these monsters wouldn't have heard you.” She raised a brow at him. He cursed under his breath and focused back on the approaching animal. This was not her fault, and both of them knew it. Perhaps it had been her fault for entering the trap or a worm-like creature, but her screaming for help was completely natural. He was the one who was stupid enough to go head first into danger because he was missing Draven and wanted to know what was going on with him. He peered into the bush and strained his eyes to see. The bush was suddenly quiet and still, but he knew what he had heard. So far, they've heard just a growl, but there could be more. If Lara was right and it was a w
Draven couldn’t believe it was over. Three months later he was still thinking if he was making the right decision. Assistant David sat in his living room with a bunch of documents in front of him. He paced up and down, not sure what he would do.“You can just sign here,” the man said for the umpteeth time. “It’s not really that hard. You sign that you’ve taken ownership of the game and you decide what you want to do with it.”“But I don’t want ownership of the game,” Draven said again. He had repeated this exact words countless times but the guy didn’t seem to be hearing him.“You should have known what you were getting yourself into when you challenged late game owner Timothy—” David paused and looked to the heavens. “May his soul not rest in peace. You should have known that killing him would automatically make you the owner of the game. Those were his rules.”Draven rolled his eyes. He was sure that Timothy had made that rule because he didn’t believe anyone would be able to defeat
Timothy laughed. His laughter was vivacious and full of life. This was what he wanted, after all. The very end of judgement day where he would punish all those who failed him; those who went against him and those who was party to his torture.Here was Draven, the strongest man to ever grace his game. Timothy knew he was going to be a lot of trouble in the future and so he had specifically looked into him. Now that Draven has waged war with his full chest over a woman, he was ecstatic. This was historic, and he was living a historic time in the present. How many men brought knives to fight for their loves, anyways?Smiling, he snapped his fingers. A single door opened and his assistant ran to him carrying a box.“You’re about to experience an historic moment with me,” He said to Draven. “Diane will be our goddess Diana, and we will be the lowly men who are fighting for her love.”Diane scoffed. “You don’t have to do it, Draven. The guy is nuts. Let’s just get out of here.”“But darling
Draven panicked for a minute. He thought for sure that the darkness and pressure meant he was losing his consciousness, but that wasn’t the case. One minutes there was stark darkness and the next minute they fell into an extremely white room with hard cardboard. They fell through the sky, hitting directly on the wood and groaning in pain. The stark white color of the room blinded them. It was brighter than a sky or white paint. It was so bright that Draven closed his eyes and tried to regain his or he r senses. He knew there was a betrayal in the group—which wasn’t surprising as their group was made of weird, diverse people, but he needed to see who exactly did it.He won’t even be surprised if to was Lara. She was the one who had led them to the cage, after all. She was the one who offered to test the waters and make sure the portal was okay. Who in their right senses tests water and portal to make a point of the portal not working? Unless he or she was working with Timothy and knew
No one said anything after Diane’s statement. They were so tired and hungry and unsure of what to do next. Draven’s goods felt heavy to him. His sword even felt heavier than normal. He didn’t believe he came back to this game to be ridiculed and placed in a very unstable condition because of a silly fight that was going on between two lovers. When he looked at Diane, he wondered if she was toying with them again. Was she afraid to meet Timothy or what? He knew that the portal might likely take them to Timothy as the owner can easily manipulate events, but at least he was ready for that stage. He could exactly tell what Diane was thinking when she was looking her nose down on the portal.“We cannot just stay here,” Lara said. “Do you want us to keep waiting for him to keep finding opportunities to kill us? We’re certainly going to die of hunger if we keep waiting!”“She’s right,” Draven concurred. “We can’t keep lying about in wait like lambs to a slaughter. We must make the first move
Everyone was super awkward after the kiss. Leo avoided for the rest of the morning. He didn’t want to talk about it but it was too late; Draven had seen them and announced to the whole pack in the morning that the kiss was probably the most hottest he’d seen.“Whoa,” Diane said excitedly. “You two kissed? That’s great. Are you like a couple now or something?”“It’s nothing like that, okay? It was just a kiss, and a mistake at that,” Leo piped up.Even though he didn’t want to talk about the kiss or look at Lara’s face, he was glad that Draven brought it up. At least he’d air his opioid publicly about it so he won’t have to be in an awkward space with Lara.“Ouch, Leo, you’re a player!” Diane said, laughing. “You can’t say those kind of things to someone when you’ve kissed them!”“I didn’t kiss her, okay? She’s the one who kissed me,” Leo defended hotly.“It’s still hurtful that you say it that way. Have some feelings, pal,” Diane said, her laugh increasing.It sounded mocking and cont
Leo could not sleep. Draven had been out for close to an hour, yet he wasn’t back yet. Lots of thoughts assaulted his brain, but the one that stayed the most was Diane.Diane. Diane. Diane.He bet she was here to true their life again, and that bet was true. If Leo was the one to handle this, he’d definitely not want to help her out the way Draven was. It was as if the guy didn’t want to learn any lessons about why it’s dangerous to just not help anyone for too long. Draven was lenient when it came to Diane and he didn’t like it one but.He turned his head to the side and saw her sleeping peacefully.“Yeah, like you didn’t just send someone to their death,” he murmured to himself.He wondered if Draven was still talking to the game creator or if he’s been killed. If he was truly killed, Leo won’t honestly know how to handle that. He tried not to think about it because it was depressing enough. He sat up now, still watching Diane. If she had been careful, they won’t be in this shit hol
Draven waited until everyone was comfortable with him being their security for the night before he left into the woods. Diane was surprisingly quiet and compliant. It was like she was into her head too much to care about what Draven wanted to do. Seeing that all odds were in his favor, Draven waited a bit before withdrawing to the forest. He walked deeper and deeper, wondering if he should just sit on a log and wait for Timothy to appear.“Hi Draven.”He yelped and fell to the ground, startled. His shouts of surprise startled the forest a bit, and so Draven waited it out to make sure no one was coming to check what the noise was before turning his head slowly to the side. There was Timothy, standing under the moonlight. He looked attractive and mysterious and just too handsome to be standing there. Draven sat up as he brushed away the small dirts on his body.“You scared me,” he hissed at Timothy. “You know you should learn not to sneak up on people like that.”“I didn’t sneak up on y
They camped inside a cave, just as Draven wanted. He’d taken his time and made sure they covered a 12 hour distance just so he could find the perfect place for them to camp. Finding a cave was not just the problem—and caves were pretty scarce. The problem was finding one that was deep and big enough to accommodate more than three persons. When he finally found it, it was nearing dark. The blanket of darkness that fell over them was just the right thing Draven needed to carry out his plans. He’d been thinking for hours how he would get away with talking to Timothy without anyone noticing and this was the best part.“A cave?” Lara asked in disbelief when they stood before the place. “Isn’t this kind of weird, Draven? Some crazy monsters might be in there!”Draven nodded in understanding. “Leo and I are going to check it out and see if it’s free of monsters; how about that?”“I thought you said we were getting to the end of the game,” Lara moaned.Draven gave her a confused look. “Lara,
They walked a long mile, Draven and Leo leading the way while Lara and Diane walked behind. Diane stayed at the far end so she won’t walk on the same lane with Lara. There was something suspicious about the young girl that she didn’t like. Diane wasn’t usually suspicious of people but when she does, her instinct was definitely right—just as it was right with Draven and Lara. Leo cleared his throat and glanced at Draven. “So… were you lying?”“Was I lying about what?” Draven mumbled.“You know… about what Diane said?”“Why would I be lying about that?”Leo cocked his brows at him. “Don’t forget that I know you all too well, Draven. I know when you lie out of necessity and when you lie out of leisure. I usually don’t catch the leisure one but the necessity one is very obvious.”Draven glanced at him with an amused expression. “Really?”“Yup. You get all tense and defensive and violet most times if you’re pressured about it. It’ll make you want to protect that little lie of yours quite